Logo Me

My first step to creating my brand was coming up with a logo. Although we were told a logo is not a brand, but a part of a brand, I still felt the need to start here. I started this with because I had already created a logo which I have previously used in another assessment.

I created this logo by playing with my username at EIT which is HoareC1. By taking the HoareC part which plays on my last name (Hoare) and the first letter of my first name (Caleb) which sounds like ‘horsey’ when read together. I liked the innocence and fun that surrounded the ‘horsey’ persona but I needed to create a logo to represent me rather than become one of those ‘bronies’ god forbid…. So, as seen above I added the skull mask/face to give a sense of interest and make the logo slightly grotesque yet still fun which is how I would describe my own artwork. This gives a sense of connectedness with the work and my branding. To finish this logo I added in the brand name alias Hoare.C in a bubbly font to continue the bubble gum artificial trait that my work carries.

Through website research I came across another illustrators site who I fell in love with straight away. (see post Brand Me) What I really liked about his site and brand overall was his logo and how it’s more than just a logo but a big chunk of his brand. See below.

What I like about this logo is the how relevant it is to his branding. His alias is Jam Factory therefore his logo is a factory, simple, bold, and not overly complicated. In the second image you can see how he has turned his logo into small toys. To me this creates his brand, it is connected and across different platforms such as the 3d toys! This carries the sense of fun and creativeness that his illustrations portray and something that would be really interesting to replicate for my own self branding.

I looked back at my brand and felt that i had over complicated it, and would prefer something more simple but still keep the concept I had built with the Hoare.C alias.

Above is the ‘current’ banner/header for this blog with the overly complicated logo. When seeing it this way on a small scale (which is how it will appear on my website) it is hard to read the brand name as well as see the entirety of the image, which lead me to start refining the image.

So what actually makes a good logo? [1]

Simple

Memorable

Timeless

Versatile

Appropriate

The simplicity of a logo allows the logo to be easily recognised and memorised, as well as as become more versatile and be used across a multitude of materials, whether that’s digital of physical.

By being true to the brand and capturing the brands character while remaining simple, the logo can become timeless and endure the ages.

With this is mind, and the character JamFactory had created as inspiration I set out to recreate my own lil logo.

From my sketches I managed to create the vector based logo in illustrator, to make the logo more versatile and able to appear on multiple surfaces. With this logo, I will be able to display it smaller on my website without the need to squint to see it or have it as large as I want without creating too much to look at. It is simple, refined, but still keeps my alias that portrays me and my art.